What is Family Home Evening

Leaders of The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-Day Saints have instructed members to set aside Monday night as "family home evening." This is a time for families to study the gospel together and to do other activities that strengthen the family spiritually, create family memories, and increase unity and love. To learn more visit this website.

Why Family Home Evening

"I wonder if having unplanned and infrequent family home evenings will be enough to fortify ourselves and our children with sufficient moral strength to meet the complexities of our day. Infrequent family scripture study may be inadequate to arm ourselves and our children with the virtue necessary to withstand the moral decay of the environment in which we live. Where in the world will we learn chastity, integrity, honesty, and basic human decency if not at home? These values will, of course, be reinforced at church, but teaching them in family home evening can be particularly consistent and effective. To combat the world's evil influences, we need the strength that comes from family home evening."

James E. Faust, “Enriching Our Lives through Family Home Evening,” Ensign, Jun 2003, 2–6

Monday, September 1, 2008

FHE Outline

This is copied from lds.about.com

New to Family Home Evening or need a little help to get organized? Then check out this outline. Just fill in the information, do a little planning, and change it to fit your family's needs.

The person assigned to conducting Family Home Evening should fill out the following outline ahead of time, as well as assign family members for the prayers, lesson, activity, refreshments, etc.

Here is a Printable Outline (The underline is where you write the title of the lesson.)

TITLE OF THE LESSON

Objective: What your family is to learn from the lesson.

Opening Song: Select a hymn to sing, from either the LDS Church Hymnbook or the Children's Songbook. Choosing a song that accompanies the lesson is a great way to start your Family Home Evening. For help see the LDS Music resources.

Opening Prayer: Ask a family member, ahead of time, to give the opening prayer.

Family Business: This is the time to discuss things of importance to your family, such as meetings, trips, and activities of both parents and children. Some items of family business can include:

Discussing events of the upcoming week
Planning future outing and activities
Talking about family needs or things to be improved/worked on
Finding ways to serve others in need
Scripture: Ask someone (ahead of time so they can prepare) to share a scripture. (This optional item is perfect for larger families and groups.)

Lesson: This is where the heart of the evening should be. Whether it is a story or object lesson it can focus on an LDS topic, a community issue, or other topics of interest. Some ideas include eternal families, respect, baptism, the Plan of Salvation, littering, the Holy Ghost, etc. Youth and children should have opportunities of preparing and teaching a Family Home Evening lesson although they may need some help. For lesson helps check out the Lessons and Talks and Visual and Musical Aids categories.

Testimony: The person teaching can share their testimony about the topic, if applicable, at the end of their lesson. Alternatively another family member could be assigned to share their testimony after the lesson.

Closing Song: You can select another hymn or song that reflects on the lesson topic.

Closing Prayer: Ask a family member, ahead of time, to give the closing prayer.

Activity: This is the time to bring your family together by doing something together! It can be anything fun, like a simple family activity, a planned outing, a craft, or a great game! It doesn't have to go along with the lesson, but definitely can if you have any appropriate ideas.

Refreshments: This is just a fun option that can be added to your Family Home Evening. If you know of a cute treat that can represent the theme, that would be ideal, but is not necessary. See these Family Home Evening Refreshments for some tasty ideas.

Note: To help remind each family member of their assignments for FHE you could create a FHE Chart.

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